


Ravens and Sisters

by kunnskat



Series: Winter was Here [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Badass Arya, Gen, Mentions of Jon Snow - Freeform, Mentions of Sansa Stark, Sibling Relationship, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-13 17:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11765277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kunnskat/pseuds/kunnskat
Summary: He is the very opposite of Brynden Rivers and at the same time the very same. He sees things change and knows his sister will get what she wants one way or another. His way is safer, he will not then lose her to death as the one before him had lost his sister.ORArya Stark is an unfortunate thorn in the plan to make Bran an impartial three-eyed raven watching over what is left of the world and keeping things on track to make it grow once more after all the losses of the Winter War.





	Ravens and Sisters

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [a girl is no one; the three-eyed raven](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11730981) by [lutece](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lutece/pseuds/lutece). 



“Bran,” he hears, and only her allowance of it brings the sound of footsteps to his ears, nearing him by each one.

He turns, her expression is firm, but nothing of what he knows she feels is shown, only that which is needed for him to believe she can manage everything on her own, that he is not needed should he wish to go.

She knows he intends to, she knows not where.

She knows not that he intends to bring her with him.

The raven holds a hand out for his sister, and he knows he is allowed to have one, for the previous one had kept his beyond death, waiting for her to trust him with her.

She will, with time, and they have all the time in the world now.

“Will they fare well?” she asks, as if she intends to go, too. He knows her thoughts, her decision to not be the only Stark left now that the Starks are unnecessary.

He smiles, then, carefully but as he would have done when it was just Bran and Arya and walls to climb and a mother to scold them, a father to try, siblings that would at least once be persuaded to get into trouble too, and she takes his hand as he'd known she would.

The other one he puts on the face of the tree that will allow them to see.

They are at Winterfell. They are not. Death claims an old woman within, then Death stands with them, faceless as Bran had known it would be.

Arya is tense, but Bran keeps holding her hand, denying her the impulse to draw a sword and fight Death away, to protect Bran who cannot truly protect himself like she can.

The faceless becomes a man, and there is wonder in his sister.

“A girl is owed, a boy is owed, many lives. A trade could be accepted, what would you ask for?”

Arya's mind turns at this, he feels it, and the scene turns to the war they had fought and the first important loss to them both, their father's head rolling on the ground until it stops in front of them, empty eyes staring up at them and the crowd going wild behind them.

“Death is timeless,” Bran tells her, still looking upon the faceless face she had once loved in her own way.

“Death has always been,” it remarks slowly, understanding where he is going with this. “And Death will always be. Not all Deaths must happen when they do, Death can wait, but all men must die.”

“Wait. What about us? What'll we be then? What'll go back with us?” trust Arya to ask the questions that'll allow them to do their parts, Bran hadn't thought about that, only that he'd seen where they needed to be, he'd seen things change, and that was how he knew they could.

“A choice,” Death tells them, turning the face towards Bran. “I can bring you to the Death you witnessed first, and you can give mercy to your younger selves, and become them. Or I may direct you, and he will fly you there, and you will live long enough to make the necessary changes for the lives you wish traded to be spared.”

“A choice,” Arya agrees, and Bran feels her eyes on him, knowing well what she is thinking. “Would they trust us like this as we'd need them to?”

“Mayhaps they do not need to trust us for the changes to be made,” he tells her in return, and for a moment it is just the two of them, just Arya and Bran, no one and a raven, and nothing and no one else.

In unison they turn back to Death and nod, Bran making the decision as Lord of Winterfell and Arya following despite being the Queen of the North, “guide us, Death, and we will fly.”

-

“We come from beyond the wall,” they tell him, Bran in the chair that he'd been placed in, Arya holding his hand as if they are wedded next to him, but standing tall. It's the lie they must tell to be allowed to stay for some time.

“He fell and broke and no one would help him, there is no safety from the winter there. They say Starks are honorable, they say Starks know when Winter is Coming,” Arya puts pressure on those three words, knowing that they along with her true face will bring him to believe that she is a Stark, though one born beyond the Wall, and that he will not be able to say no to her. “They say that I should go home, so home I went and I brought what is mine with me so he could not be stolen from me.”

Ned Stark's expression is grim, he sits there thinking for a moment before he looks at Bran who cannot lie and cannot twist the truth to fit him as she can, and asks his name.

“Brandon,” he tells him truthfully. “Named after a beloved uncle lost to Death some time ago.”

Arya smiles softly at him and he knows she approves of that particular brand of truth, something that will tug on the heartstrings of the man they once called Father.

Ned nods slightly, accepting the answer, for he knows not what names are common beyond the Wall and he knows not of politics beyond it so he cannot ask for more of him, “one more thing, then. The Wall, how did you get through.”

And this is where Arya must take over, so Bran looks down upon his broken body, listening as she tells the tale, “we did not come through, Lord Stark, we came over.”

The reply, and the use of his title after a conversation with none of it, startles the man, even Bran can tell without seeing, “over?” he asks in a tone of surprise, a hint of disbelief.

“Over,” she firmly replies. “Daggers and rope helped me climb and I tied him to my back so that he would not slip, and then I climbed for as long as was needed, up and down and we almost slipped many times, but I am strong, I protect what is mine.”

“How--” he begins to ask, but Arya interrupts as if she'd known what he would ask from the very beginning. “It is taught to all of us that gathered together, how to climb. We were taught how deep the daggers had to go to stay put and still be pulled out on the way on a section of the Wall barely ever patrolled. The rope always brought so that when the strongest had gotten to the top, they would tie it and it would fall down on the other side where they could much easier climb down. Sometimes the rope was put down the way they'd come from for others to climb, but that was for the larger raiding parties.”

“You offer this information very freely,” it is noted, but Arya only smiles disarmingly at Ned, nodding once. “It would be known with time either way, eventually they will decide to stop waiting to be allowed safety and take it for themselves. Mayhaps now you can ensure the people they would take it from is not harmed for it? Less Death means less danger no matter which side of the wall it happens on.”

Ned Stark is a man of honor, he will not lead a charge to rid of the wildlings before they attack. He will choose the more peaceful way, he will approach them to learn what it is they need that they cannot have where they are in hopes of offering a trade, and when he learns that the dead walk again, and it will be proven to him when he comes for he is a Stark, he will work to find a way to save their lives.

He is also a man that cannot say no to the woman that looks just like his lost sister Lyanna, and so they are granted a room, for now, and allowance to appear at the feasts and eat with everyone else. And an offer to carry Bran, but Arya shakes her head, putting on a mask of determination just as she'd put on any other masks she'll have soon, and turns her back to her brother, kneeling so he may drag himself onto it. She lifts his legs on her own, and he holds his arms around her shoulders, head resting near her neck as he watches their father lead the way, glancing back at them every now and then.

-

She turns to him in the bed, and he turns his head to look at her, knowing what she will ask and knowing it is knowledge he must share.  
“Bran?” she hesitates, so he shows her that it is alright by reaching for her hand, fingers twining, and it brings her courage. “Did you know for long that this is where we would end up?”

He's silent for some time, bringing his thoughts to mind as to the first time he'd known, and she waits patiently like she's learned to when it is between them. They are closer now than they had ever been, even as children when they'd gotten into mischief together, when they'd crawled into bed together and laughed about it at night when no one else would notice either gone from their beds.

“For a while,” he tells her. “Since Sansa.”

Sansa had been a sacrifice he'd not quite known ahead of time would happen, he hadn't dared look ahead of time because he'd thought it would mean he'd lose one of them for certain. Now he knows that even if he'd known, he would not have been able to do anything. Arya might have, if she'd been by her side at the time, but telling her so had proven to hurt her more than most things ever could.

Jon had been angry with him for that. He wishes Jon was still here to be angry with him again, their Jon. The Jon that knew Death almost as intimately as them. The Jon of Winterfell now is just a young boy, barely touching upon adulthood.

Arya breathes deeply in, then exhales in a sigh, turning her face into his neck to hide her expression despite knowing that his knowledge of her extends so deeply that he'll always know her face.

“They won't die like that, this time.”

“They won't,” he agrees, though he knows not if they can save them from any other deaths.

“We'll spend some time with them before we go, won't we?” she knows they will, he cannot deny his need to see Rickon alive and well, to see his mother smile, to see Robb and Jon, and even Theon, work together to teach him to shoot a bow as well as Arya had been able to already then.

“Some, and then we must go,” they've got more people to save, to warn, to keep Death away from at least a little while longer than originally.

Bran smiles wryly, as he thinks this. It figures, really, that Arya would be able to bring him into trouble and mischief and adventures even when he's not supposed to be partial. She'd been the one to teach him what any of those even meant from when he'd been but a little boy as Rickon is now, she'd been the one to have gotten him into climbing, showing him that even walls could be climbed if they wanted.

She'd climbed the largest Wall in the world for him when he could not climb it himself. He'd longed to and she had done it for him twice.

He supposes it is only fair that he who could not do everything for either of his sisters before he became the raven would do everything for the one he's got left now that he is.


End file.
